Down by the River

by Lin Stepp

  Jack and Roger bonded immediately, and since Jack’s mother, Althea, worked in the realty business with Duncan and Verlin, Bebe took on Jack’s care—along with taking care of Roger. Jack had known a series of sitters before that, and Bebe brought him a new stability and sense of family. Roger became like a brother to Jack, and Aunt Bebe became a second mother figure.

  Nine years ago, when Celine had walked out on Jack and left him with two babies still in diapers, Bebe had stepped in to mother his girls. Jack would be eternally grateful to her for that. With Bebe’s and Althea’s care and love, the girls had suffered less from being deserted than they might have if Jack had been on his own.

  Jack got up to get another cup of coffee, and gave Bebe a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was white-headed now, wore bifocal glasses, and was more full-figured—but she was still beautiful to Jack. “You’re an amazing woman, Bebe. I hope I remember to thank you often enough for all you do. And for all you’ve always done for me and the girls.”

  “Pooh. Now what brought on this sentimental moment, Jack?” She hugged him back fondly. “You know you’re just my other boy—and that these are my precious grandchildren as much as Daisy and Ruby are.”

  Daisy and Ruby were his cousin Roger’s children. When Roger and Samantha had started their family, Samantha had given up her teaching job for a few years to stay home with the girls. Two years ago, when her old job had opened back up at Townsend Elementary, Samantha had gone back to teach kindergarten. Bebe kept four-year-old Ruby during the school year, and kept ten-year-old Daisy along with Meredith and Morgan after school.

  Bebe patted Jack’s shoulder now as she came to sit down at the table. “You know, I’ve often thought how good God has been to me—giving me a family of boys to raise when I was young and then a sweet family of little girls to raise when I grew older.”

  Jack grinned at her. “Are you saying Roger and I weren’t sweet?”

  “There were moments when you two boys were sweet.” She laughed. “Like when you were both asleep.”

  The girls giggled over that.

  “Were Roger and Daddy bad?” Meredith asked, cocking her head to one side.

  “Sometimes,” Bebe answered. “Between the two of them they kept my days lively and full, I can tell you that.”

  Morgan’s eyes brightened. “Tell us a story about Daddy and Uncle Roger when they were bad, Aunt Bebe.”

  Bebe smiled at her indulgently. “Well, let’s see … I remember one time those boys nearly scared two lives out of me getting themselves lost in Tuckaleechee Caverns.”

  Jack saw Morgan’s and Meredith’s eyes grow wide with fascination, and he chuckled. He remembered this story well, too.

  “You want to tell it, Jack?”

  He nodded. “Back in the sixties when Roger and I were growing up, the cave didn’t get as many visitors as it does today. Sometimes the owners got a little lax back then about policing the entrance real well. Roger and I found an opportunity to slip into the cave unobserved and then followed along with a tour group. We had us a fine time learning all about the history of the cave, how the Cherokees discovered it long ago, and how the giant stalagmites and stalactites formed. When the group got ready to leave, we lagged behind, not wanting the man at the entrance gate to catch too close a look at us.”

  Jack paused and took a drink of his coffee. “The problem was, the owners were getting ready to shut down the cave for the day. We didn’t know that. While we dawdled around, the owners, the Vanadas, locked up and then turned off the lights. And there Roger and I were, locked into a pitch-dark cave.”

  Morgan gasped. “Were you scared?”

  “Scared to death.” Jack grinned and shook his head. “You haven’t seen dark until you experience dark in an underground cave.”

  “Like when they turn off the lights now during the tour of Tuckaleechee,” Meredith said. “I was really scared then, even when you held my hand.”

  “The lucky thing for us was that Roger had one of those little penlight flashlights in his pocket. By using that we finally found our way back up toward the entrance. But when we got there, everything was locked up tight. We hollered and hollered, but nobody came to let us out.”

  “What did you do?” Morgan asked, leaning forward and biting her lip.

  “Sat down against the door and waited. We didn’t know what else to do.”

  Bebe shook her head in remembrance. “In the meantime, Althea, Verlin, and I were searching all over the place trying to find Roger and Jack. We knew they’d gone across the highway, up the Tuckaleechee Road, and down Old Cades Cove Road to their friend Danny Miller’s place. The boys shouldn’t have gone that far, of course, but we learned they’d both been seen there when we started searching. Danny’s dog had just delivered new pups, and we found out the boys had sneaked over there on their bikes to see them.”

  She gave Jack an admonishing look. “Jack told me they were going down to the store on the highway to get colas and penny candy.”

  Jack laughed. “We did do that, Aunt Bebe. We simply extended our trip a little.”

  She tut-tutted. “It was the bikes that saved those poor boys from spending a long, dark night in the cave. Some of the men on the search team found the bikes propped against the fence near the parking lot at the caves.”

  Bebe shook her head. “Land-a-mercy, I remember Bill Vanada and Harry Myers were sure mad when we roused them out of a good sleep to come open up their cave to see if you two boys were in there.”

  “They weren’t as mad as my daddy was.” Jack wrinkled his nose in remembrance. “I don’t think Roger or I sat down without wincing for two days after that.”

  Meredith blinked, her mouth forming a big O. “Did you get a spanking?”

  “We did, and we deserved it. What we did was wrong and dangerous.” Fathering had taught Jack to put the right endings on his stories.

  “Wow, that’s a cool story.” Morgan grinned. “I’m going to tell it to Ms. Grace today. I wonder if she’s ever been to Tuckaleechee Caverns.”

  Jack smiled. “Well, maybe your Girl Scout group can work on a rock or geology badge and go there as a troop. You could get a group rate for everyone. It would be fun.”

  “That’s a swell idea, Daddy.” Morgan’s eyes lit up.

  “We visited the cave so long ago I’ve forgotten almost everything now,” Meredith put in. “I’d like to go again. Maybe you could come, too, Daddy?”

  Meredith was sweet like that, always thinking of others.

  “I’d like that, peanut.” He tweaked her cheek.

  Bebe eyed the clock in the kitchen. “You’d better get on to the realty office, Jack. You said you had a nine thirty appointment.”

  “So I do,” he said, getting up to leave and buzzing both the girls and Aunt Bebe on the cheek before he left.

  Jack felt happy and blessed to have his girls in his life, and he thought about them often through his day. He also thought about Grace Conley. It was good of her to take his girls to get their Scout uniforms. Maybe he should get her a little gift for being so nice to Meredith and Morgan. It would give him a chance to stop by to see her again to present it to her. He’d like that. He wanted to see if she still stirred him up. Jack found women attractive, but he also found that he tired of most of them quickly. The electricity kicked in for a while, and then the initial attraction faded. He’d be glad when his attraction to Grace faded. It was disruptive. Kept him antsy and unfocused. Distracted. Even irritable. He wasn’t used to that.

  It was Friday night now. Since Meredith and Morgan were spending the night at Stacy Clark’s for a birthday sleepover, Jack had a free night to go out. There was a party over at Rookie Beezer’s place. A group of the singles from around the area was going to be there. Jack dropped by about eight and hung around for an hour or so. He laughed, had a few beers, flirted with some girls, danced, and listened to jokes and stories. And was bored. Utterly. As the evening wore on, the group got rowdier and louder. Couples broke off and
found quiet, dark places to neck. With many of the guys drinking too much, the noise level rose. The stories and jokes got raunchier, too. Feeling restless, Jack slipped out onto the deck behind Rookie’s place. He leaned his arms on the deck rail and looked off down the mountain, savoring the quiet. After a few moments, Wyleen Deadrick let herself out the screen door to join him.

  “You seem a little blue tonight, Jack.” She came up to stand beside him and put a friendly arm around his waist.

  Wyleen knew Jack well enough for that, but he made no response in return.

  “What’s wrong, Jack? You haven’t seemed like yourself tonight.” Her fingers began to comfortably find their way around his back and under the belt of his pants. She looked up at him with suggestive gray eyes. Pretty eyes. Wyleen was still a fine-looking woman, even after having been married twice now.

  “I heard you took your name back again after your divorce from Grady.”

  “Yeah.” A faint smile played over her lips. “I didn’t like the name Millhouse much. And Grady’s mother was real glad to see me go back to being Wyleen Deadrick. She wasn’t very fond of me, you know.”

  Considering that Wyleen had cheated on Grady the whole three years they’d been married, Jack could hardly blame Grady’s mother. And Jack liked Grady Millhouse.

  He edged away subtly from Wyleen and looked at his watch. “I gotta go get my girls, Wyleen.” Jack didn’t usually lie, but he suddenly wanted to leave Rookie Beezer’s place and this whole scene.

  Wyleen put her hands on Jack’s chest and leaned up to kiss him. She tasted like beer and cigarettes, and Jack felt suddenly revolted.

  Kindly, he backed off and patted Wyleen’s cheek. “You be good now, you hear?” It was a standard line of Jack’s, and it brought the low chuckle he expected.

  “You should know that I’m always good, Jack.” She raised her eyebrows and gave him a suggestive look. “And you know where I live if you want to come by one night. We could make a few more good memories.”

  Jack knew he could drop by tonight, but he had no desire to. He and Wyleen had a little past together, but there was nothing more to it than that. And tonight, he felt no attraction to her at all. Jack shrugged. Actually, there was no one here he felt any attraction to. He didn’t even know why he wasn’t having a good time. It was Friday. He was free and single; he should be having a great time. He had a lot of longtime friends here at Rookie’s. But the truth was he felt discontented with them tonight. He even felt discontented with himself.

  He drove home, let himself in the house, and then wished his girls were there for company. The house seemed entirely too quiet, and Jack’s discontent increased. Maybe he was having some kind of midlife crisis or something. He’d read some articles about that somewhere, sitting in the dentist’s office or at the barber shop. He couldn’t remember now where he’d read about it. He wished he could.

  Not liking the fuzzy feeling in his head from the beers he’d drunk at Rookie’s, Jack made a pot of coffee. It would probably keep him up late. But, heck, it didn’t seem like he was likely to fall into a good sleep right away anyway, the way this night was going.

  Jack took his cup of coffee outside on the screened porch. Feeling restless there, too, he walked down the path that wound down the hillside from his house until he came to the rock patio that looked down on the river. He slipped into one of the old metal chairs there and propped his feet up on the rock wall.

  It was a nice night. A full moon and the light from it played down on the Little River that flowed through Townsend. He had a nice view here—high on the hillside where he’d built his house a few years after Celine had left him. As soon as he could, he’d sold the cabin they’d lived in up on Rich Mountain, and he’d moved back home near his family by the river. Roger had designed his house here—a weathered, gray-gabled home tucked high above the river in the woods. It was a private place; you had to be looking for it to find it. Jack had been happy here raising his girls—except for those occasional times when he’d heard from Celine and when she wanted money.

  She’d given up her custody rights to the girls after she left and they divorced. But she had contacted Jack for a handout every now and then in the early years. Now that she was a star and famous in the soaps, he didn’t hear from her anymore. He hoped he never did again. Jack knew now that she’d only married him because she’d found herself pregnant.

  “Did you ever love me?” he had asked Celine once.

  She’d shrugged carelessly. “You were the area playboy when we met, Jack. I didn’t think that sort of thing concerned you. We were good for a while in the way it mattered. You know. Then I found out I was pregnant. I thought for a bit marriage and a family might be fun.”

  Celine had studied her nails before looking up at Jack candidly. “I was wrong. I wasn’t cut out for the marriage and family thing.” Celine had paced around the room restlessly then. “This is not where I belong, Jack. I need to get back to Hollywood. I have my looks again now after the babies. This is my time. If I wait much longer, I’ll miss my chance.”

  He shouldn’t have been surprised to find her gone not many weeks later. The foolish thing was that Jack had fallen in love with her. She was a good actress, all right. And she’d taken him in. She had been a stunning redhead with cat-green eyes. The fact that she was in Townsend doing a movie had fascinated Jack. He’d never met anyone like Celine Rosen before. Admittedly, he’d felt smug back then to squire her around, even smugger to have her fall for him. She seemed a lot like him—reckless, free, and uninhibited. But he had been wrong about her being right for him. She was selfish and only able to love herself.

  Across the river, Jack saw the back porch lights switch on at the Mimosa Inn and watched Grace come out into the light of the porch. She let herself out the back door and started down toward the river. The dogs ran with pleasure around the yard.

  Jack smiled. “So, you’re restless tonight, too, Grace Conley.”

  He watched her stroll down to the river and stop to look up toward the hill where his house stood. She couldn’t see him sitting on the rock patio behind the wall. But he could see her.

  Jack felt a tightening in his gut. “Are you thinking about me, Grace? Looking up here toward my home? I’d like to know.”

  He realized suddenly that Grace was the reason he hadn’t had a good time at Rookie’s party tonight. She had gotten to him. He hoped he got over it soon. For Grace wouldn’t be like Wyleen Deadrick and invite him over for a night to enjoy a good time. She was a different kind of woman. And Jack had no business being attracted to her.

  Grace walked out onto the swinging bridge, and Jack’s heartbeat quickened. He didn’t know how he’d handle it if she came climbing up the hill to him. Probably not well. His thoughts were not gentlemanly ones tonight.

  Sensual passion slid up Jack’s spine as he watched Grace stand on the swinging bridge looking down the river. He wanted her—that was for sure.

  “You better go home, Miz Grace Conley,” he said. “The big bad wolf’s out tonight. It would be dangerous for you if you ran into him right now.”

  The corgis whined at the entrance to the bridge, obviously afraid to walk out on it. Jack heard Grace’s laugh float up to him as she shook her head in amusement at them. Her laugh tickled through Jack’s senses, pumping his blood.

  Grace turned then and walked slowly back across the bridge, her hips swaying softly in the loose fabric pants she wore. Jack gripped the arms of his chair to keep from calling out to her.

  “You’re driving me crazy, Grace Conley.” His words were soft and raspy. “I sometimes think it would have been better if you hadn’t bought the Oakley back in May. If you’d stayed angry at me and just gone back to Nashville. We wouldn’t be in this fix if you had. And I’ll be danged if I know what we’re going to do about it.”

  Jack’s eyes followed Grace as she walked through the yard and let herself back in the Mimosa Inn. Then he sat quietly and watched as the lights winked out on the por
ch and eventually in the rest of the house. It was a long time before he made his way back up from the rock patio to his own house. He had spent a lot of time thinking. But he couldn’t say he’d found any good answers.

  Well, time would sort things out. He told himself this as he locked up the doors before starting back to his bedroom to call it a night. When he settled into the big king-size bed in his room, sleep was slow to find him. He fleetingly thought of getting up and going to Wyleen’s, but he knew that wasn’t the answer right now.

  Instead, he found a good mystery in the cabinet by his bed and proceeded to read himself to sleep.

  CHAPTER 9

  The early weeks of summer slipped quickly by. Grace was surprisingly busy at the Mimosa. The reopening invitations she’d sent out in May to Mavis Oakley’s old customer list had brought many repeat clients back to the inn. In addition, a few choice magazine ads, word-of-mouth, and drive-by traffic through Townsend had brought in even more. A steady stream of guests came to the inn each week now, and Grace’s balance sheets were looking very impressive.

  Here on Tuesday, on a weekday, when Grace had no guests, she’d finally gotten back to work on the woodcraft shop Carl Oakley had left behind. The shop, about the length of a double garage, had two parts. The back held a workshop, and the front a sales area with built-in display shelves, counters, and tables. Between the workshop and sales area the wall was partially open so anyone in the back—working on a project—could see anyone who came into the front door of the shop. Likewise, customers could look through to watch the crafter at work while they browsed.

  Of course, it had taken days for Grace to clean out the place—and to discover that there were a half-bath and a storage room in the far back of the shop. Now, most of the boxes of supplies sat piled in the shop’s storage room or, temporarily, in the next-door garage. Grace had repainted inside and out. Since the front of the shop had a small porch across it and two windows, Grace had added green shutters to the windows and painted the old wood furniture pieces on the porch to match—so the shop would coordinate with the inn.